Facebook's Zuckerberg: We "Missed The Mark"

Echoing (or is that just endlessly repeating?) comments made by his minions last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today said that the company “missed the mark” with its complex privacy controls, and vowed to give users a “simpler way to control your information.”

In a Washington Post column, Zuckerberg repeated statements that the company would provide easier-to-manage privacy tools that would allow customers to decide which of their data is made public.

We have heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible. We hope you’ll be pleased with the result of our work and, as always, we’ll be eager to get your feedback. …

We have also heard that some people don’t understand how their personal information is used and worry that it is shared in ways they don’t want. I’d like to clear that up now. Many people choose to make some of their information visible to everyone so people they know can find them on Facebook. We already offer controls to limit the visibility of that information and we intend to make them even stronger.

Zuckerberg didn’t offer up any changes to which personal data the company would share by default.